Horrible realization about the ice palace novel

[pegkerr]

I just realized: I can't write the book I was planning to write now because what I was planning to do with Rolf and Ingrid and Solveig exactly what I think Rowling is going to do in Book 7: I was going to have have Rolf trying to achieve his immortality by magically stealing the lives of his children that he impregnates women with. It's too close to what I think she's going to do in Book 7, putting a horcrux in a person. The price is exactly the same: he achieves immortality at the price of murder.

*insert horrible swearing here*

Edited to add: All right, all right everyone. Put those sporks away. It's Been Done Before. By everybody.

[Weird to be reassured on the basis that the idea isn't original in the least.]</lj-cut.

Comments

[madlori.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's too close at all, Peg. And the whole soul-stealing concept is quite universal, and frequently explored. In fiction, it doesn't matter so much that whatever concept or idea you choose is wholly original (does such a thing exist?) but that it's well executed and interesting the way YOU do it.

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

If that would stop you, then CS Friedman already used it at the beginning of the Coldfire Trilogy.

If it's a good concept, it can stand being used more than once, in different ways, as an integral part of different story lines.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Being John Malkovich.

Not a new idea, so if you can make it work, go for it.

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

Phooey on Book 7! besides, this is just further incentive to finish your own book -- if you can beat her to the punch, all the better, eh?

Besides, I agree with others that it's really not all that close at all ^_^

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

I agree! And obviously the thousand-year-old master Go player in our icons does, too. ;) How can you argue with that?

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

What Would Sai Do?

he would totally write the book.

;}

[merebrillante.livejournal.com]

I agree with the others. This plot is as old as Greek mythology -- isn't that what Cronos did to his children by Gaia? And then she hid Zeus, who killed his father and released all his siblings from Cronos's belly.

There are no new ideas, just fresh approaches. Go for it.

[ari-o.livejournal.com]

Well said, and also biazrrely crucial to the plot of my novel! There is nothing new or truly original to experience in the world, but that doesn't diminish the constant flux of new people for whom the world is new and full of wonder! Kierkegaard said something similar in "Fear and Trembling."

[misia.livejournal.com]

But stealing souls and placing parts of one's own soul elsewhere for later use or for safekeeping are in so many different traditions of magic and storytelling -- I mean, I can think of Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, and northern European versions off the top of my head -- that I can scarcely think that having one *more* person use a similar or related convention should make any difference...

just, y'know, sayin'.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Do what?

*blink*

Ah, Peg?

(1) You don't know that's what Ms. Rowling is planning to do -- and you won't know for two years.

(2) Even if you're right, so what? It's a good riff; it's been used multiple times -- every time different. So give us your take on it, with your characters and the impact that this situation will have on their lives and their souls.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

Given that I can think of two books off the top of my head where a major character achieves immortality through murder (or otherwise destroying another person's soul), I don't think that's too close at all.

(Er. Is naming one of the two books going to be too much of a spoiler for it, given that one doesn't find out about the soul-stealing until mid-book?)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

You know, even if Rowling does do that, that doesn't disqualify you from writing your own take on it. As other people have said, it's not an uncommon trope (Diana Wynne Jones does something similar in "Stealer of Souls," and Lois McMaster Bujold likewise in The Hallowed Hunt). And what you do with it will not be the same as what anyone else has done with it. No two people ever approach the same idea in the same way.

Graduate students are paranoid about someone else publishing a book or article about their dissertation topic before they can finish. And it happens. But (in the humanities--science is different) it never renders the dissertation superfluous. It's just one more voice to argue with. The parallels to fiction writing are not exact, but I think they're close enough.

A genre or sub-genre is made up of different authors' approaches to the same idea or set of ideas. That's what makes genre theory so much fun, is you get to trace one idea through a number of different minds.

I guess what I'm saying is that this isn't a problem. A challenge, perhaps, but not a problem.

[pameladean]

Just to add to the chorus, I used that in the Secret Country trilogy -- the achievement of immortality through murder, though the ones murdered were not human (they're sure sapient, though). And I stole it from all sorts of places.

It genuinely is intimidating when a hugely popular author seems to be heading in the same general direction as one's own puny efforts, and it's annoying when people make assumptions about influence, but neither of these is a reason not to write your book.

I got into a terrible tizzy when I was writing Whim, because Stephen Donaldson came out with The Mirror of her Dreams and I realized we were using mirrors similarly. But I didn't get the idea from him, and in fact nobody has yet accused me of doing so.

P.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree with the others - you don't know for sure what JKR is planning, and even if she does that, she's not the first nor will she be the last, so go ahead and write your story exactly as you originally wanted.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Add my vote to the "go ahead and write it, dammit!" tally. Mz. Rowling can't copyright _that_ idea, it's been in the public domain for millennia. And given her past record on meeting deadlines, you could make _her_ look like the copycat....

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as madlorivoldemort says, that is a commonly explored theme. Orson Scott Card's Harts Hope is much closer to your idea than putting a horcrux inside a person. (Is Harry and his scar a Horcrux???) In HH, Queen Beauty gets her power by killing her ten months child by King Palicroval. (This happens fairly early in the book, so I don't think it's that much of a spoiler to tell you.)

That said, it's not the first time the theme has been explored before and it's not the last. It's all about how you approach the story. Also if you have strong and somewhat unique characters, I think readers will be less likely to notice or care if you are dipping into old mythology.

[lizardlaugh.livejournal.com]

no way Peg, not close at all. And that is a brilliant idea, btw. Amazingly brilliant.

As for putting a Horcrux in a person, people have had theories for ages now that part of Voldemort's soul was in Harry. What you are doing with your characters is very different and more, personal and, well, gruesome. Don't let Harry Potter stop you.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

Just means you have to finish your novel first, silly. (I haven't read HP at all, so I can't comment on whether or not y

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I guess I have to read the book now.

B

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Peg, it's not close. The "immortality at the price of murder" is an old, old story, and the notion that we can hide pieces of our souls to stay safe is equally ancient. FWIW, Lloyd Alexander used both of them back in the 60s.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's all that close. But I have to wonder: are you really looking for excuses to ditch this book? And if so, is it just because you know the book will take posession of you and wring you dry once you really get into it, or is this just not the book you ought to be writing? If the first, then I think it's a hurdle you just need to steel yourself to, if this book needs to be written. The second possiblity, though, is something I've wondered about since reading the comment at the end of Wild Swans, that you only write stories that grab hold of you and refuse to let go (or words to that effect).

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

Can you imagine how different the world would be if JKR had dropped "The Philosophers's Stone" because the one-paragraph description of Harry was precisely like Tim Hunter from "The Books of Magic" and EVERYONE would know that she was stealing from Neil Gaiman (except that she wasn't)?

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

And how many times has the Hero's Journey been done? Beowulf, Star Wars, the Tarot deck, LotR, and even HP. But people still read it and write it because it's done in a new and different way every time. Which you can and will do.

chiming in on clamor

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

. . .yes, you'll have to find a different excuse as to why you can't work on that novel now. *grin*

[vass]

How would you feel if Rowling's having done it *did* forbid you from writing the book? If there was some completely external, nothing to do with you and work and karate and the kids, reason why you Weren't Allowed to write this novel?